The Reluctant Apostate: Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Comes at a Price

by Lloyd Evans

Throw into the equation the fact that Russell was a habitual megaphone for false predictions, a subscriber to crackpot pyramid theories, a casual racist, and a man who resorted to deception in an attempt to conceal his marital indiscretions, and we are left with an individual who is unrecognizable from the wise, unassuming, grandfatherly figure Watchtower would have us imagine. At best, Russell was a gullible and eccentric entrepreneur with more money than sense who let fame and adulation go to his head. At worst, he was a crank, charlatan and narcissist whose role as founder of a religious movement with pretensions of equality, family values and moral purity is entirely at odds with his writings and conduct. In either case, by forming an organization with such apocalyptic, authoritarian underpinnings, Russell unknowingly created a monster that would go on to wreak havoc in the lives of millions.